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European Colonial History (HEC-AS-COLHIS-26)

HEC-AS-COLHIS-26

Description

European colonial history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has developed dynamically in recent decades, not the least in response to the critique of Eurocentrism and a selective blindness vis-à-vis the colonial past. While political and diplomatic history approaches used to dominate the field, approaches from other fields have proven useful in developing new perspectives on colonial history. This history reaches far beyond ‘the colonies’. The interplay between European and Asian, African, Latin American, and Oceanic societies, economic spaces, political structures, and cultural practices is central to recent research.
The seminar offers participants the opportunity to become familiar with these historiographical, conceptual, and methodological debates and to discuss whether and how new approaches to European colonial history confirm, challenge, or complement established interpretations.
In the first part of the seminar the participants gain an overview of the historiography of European colonial history. To do so, they study both the traditions of colonial history writing and the specificities of colonial history in its relation to imperial and global history. In the second part of the seminar, they compare older and newer approaches and interpretations with each other. Special attention will be paid to the sources on which the accounts are based as well as to the actors and fields of activity they study. Chronologically, the seminar covers the time period from the early nineteenth century to the late twentieth century, thereby including the process of decolonization and its effects on European societies.
Importantly, the comparison of approaches is not intended to discredit older interpretations but to provide the basis for the analysis of historiographical developments in their respective scholarly and political contexts. Hence, the seminar conveys both empirical knowledge of European colonial history and analytical and methodological skills that reach far beyond this particular field of study.

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